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I want to tell you about this underrated gem, perched on the pebbly shore of the West Sussex coast. Granted, it’s not five-star, but the staff are delightful and every room has bunks and toys for the kids. On the doorstep there’s a fish-and-chip restaurant in Farrow-&-Ball-ish shades with vintage posters on the walls and a children’s menu that folds into an origami fish.

Or you could stroll to the Fifties diner, all chrome and pink and jukeboxed, then on to the charming fairground where the carousel and helter-skelter are painted cheery shades and you can giggle and gurn in the retro hall of mirrors.

I wanted to tell you, because it is all true. But I am obliged to add a caveat. Readers of aesthetic sensitivity should forebear at all costs from stepping inside the giant, white tent.

For this is Butlins, where bookings are up 7.5 per cent as an uncertain world propels us into a summer of staycations. Which is why we spent a weekend in the Bognor Regis resort’s Shoreline Hotel, sussing the place out for you.

For good and for bad, the hotel's interiors have been decked out like the innards of a giant cruise ship.

After setting down our luggage, we began to drop some snobberies too. The sun was setting over the beach. Strolling along the resort’s main strip, and through the fairground, we realised that a fair number of the attractions have been decorated in a charming vintage style.

Pick and choose selectively and a trip to Butlins, we began to see, could be something of a jolly exercise in time-travel. Back to a simpler time of seaside japes, never-ending ice creams, limitless fairground rides (it’s all included, after all) and a constant schedule of cheap and cheerful fun.

But of course, holidaying in the past has its downsides. The hotel restaurant, we were soon smilingly informed, had stopped taking supper orders at 6.45pm. Peering inside, we realised this was not, perhaps, the disaster we had thought (think Ikea canteen). The resort’s other restaurants open later and are bigger on atmosphere.

Following a fish dinner (deep-fried), we returned to the hotel. Rather than take up the retro styling successfully adopted elsewhere in the resort, the Shoreline is decked out like a giant cruise ship.

Communal corridors are carpeted with a cartoonish deck, fish swimming along one side. Inside our room, a bright purple sofa bearing orange suckers nestled beside a giant floor cushion in the form of a turquoise and sadly stunted octopus.

“It’s all so shippy!” screamed the seven-year old. “Look at this shippy wardrobe! Even the bed is shippy!”

The room covered all the essentials: hairdryer, mini-fridge, TVs for both kids and adults; but he had, inadvertently, hit upon something. Snug double bed? Bit shippy. Bath gowns the texture of pirate’s stubble? Bit shippy. Faintly funky smell in the corridor? Bit shippy.

Nor does all of this come cheap. During school holidays, three nights cost a family of four £840, without breakfast.

That does, however, cover the resort’s myriad children’s activities, facilities and performances. Because this place is designed for kids, not pretentious parents. And to that extent, it has nailed its brief. There are separate cabins for kids in every room, rounded corners, all the toddler paraphernalia a tiny despot could ever require.

Holidaying at Butlins feels like a welcome return to old fashioned, cheap and cheerful fun - but holidaying in the past can have its downsides.

There is even a cartoonish bedroom for resort mascot Billy Bear, into whose arms the children ran nightly to squawk lullabies, blissfully unaware of the unfortunate Red Coat perspiring within the suit.

Later, they were also blind to the matter congealing in dark corners of the Splash World pool, seeing only “the coolest ever” flumes and wave machines. Nor were they remotely phased by the big white tent, otherwise known as The Skyline Pavilion. Imagine the centre of Magaluf, only designed for children and encased in canvas so the pings of slot machines and wails of diminutive figures being prised from them reverberate eternally off its surfaces.

Parents clutched pints for comfort as our offspring careened from soft-play centre to arcade games via the stage on which Red Coats – still smiling – sang and danced in ever-crazier costumes.

I had voluntarily crossed over into my own personal hell. But then I looked at the children’s chocolate-smeared faces. They were, I realised, having the best time of their little sugar-fuelled lives.

A three-day midweek break costs £460 for a family of four, rising to £840 during school holidays (including most attractions). Breakfast from £10.95 for adults and children aged 15 and over; £5.75 for ages six to 14; and £2.95 for two to five-year-olds (free for under twos).